Stick around
by Madam Callisto
Summary: A fluffy little piece on how Oz came to fail the 12th grade.


Oz stifles a yawn as he reads:_ Number 34, The adjacent angle blah blah of a triangle equals to yadda yadda. H_e hums quietly to himself. His band had a gig coming up soon. Oz taps his pencil against the side of his desk in beat with his humming:_ What is angle of B?_

_120 degrees, _Oz thinks to himself.

He fills in the bubble-D. 90 degrees.

_42. The war of 1812 was fought between—_Oz wonders how Willow's exams are going. She'd been studying pretty hard these past couple weeks. They hadn't much time to hang out considering most of their free time was spent killing things in graveyards.

_A, _Oz circles, _to prevent the spread of communism._

_Summarize the writers meaning in the following passage:_

Oz just circles C. There hasn't been a C for a while and he wants to give all his letter options equal opportunity. He stops when he's about to reach the next question. C was actually the correct answer. _Crap. _Oz erases it and fills in B. Can't have any correct answer going around. Who'd have thought failing his exams would take so much effort?

Eventually, as Oz continues to move onto the next exam and then the next, boredom leads him to become bit more creative with his self-sabotage.

_The cell below is in which state of mitosis?_

Oz just draws a duck in between the A and B. Duck's feel right in this instance. Duck's are appropriate for any occasion.

_Sigmund Freud-_

Oz has read enough. He draws a few more doodles, mixing them with random nonsensical song lyrics occasionally and puts a fair amount of effort into spicing them up. He gets up and drops his fifth and final exam packet on his teacher's desk with a smile. The teacher raises an eyebrow, obviously curious as to how he's finished his entire exam in little over ten minutes, but nods for him to leave anyway. Oz grabs his bag and leaves before anyone can attempt to question him.

The professor takes a peak into the packet once the door closes behind Oz, knowing full well that his class is too engrossed in cheating on their own tests to really care what the hell their teacher is doing. Oz has always been incredibly bright as far as his students go so it's no wonder that he blazed though an exam like this. He can't help but feel slightly proud that he's actually been able to teach a student something this year. He closes the packet with a smile.

* * *

"Where do you think you'll end up going after graduation?" Willow asks, laying on her bed propped on her elbow, feet dangling over the edge.

Oz shrugs. "Probably somewhere nearby."

"Really? I'd figured you of all people would want to go to a far off school and tour the world and go on adventures."

"We have adventures pretty much every week, Will."

"I know but, like, the non-Hellmouth kind of adventures."

Oz runs a hand thoughtfully though strands of Willow's hair. "Sunnydale has a certain appeal to it."

Willow's giggle turned in a mini-snort in her nose. "Sure, but I thought you would want to, you know, grab your guitar and go climb a mountain barefoot or something."

"Hm, that might need to go on my list."

"Exactly, you've plenty of after high school options!" Willow says nodding earnestly.

"It can wait."

Willow tangles her finger through Oz's. "Wait for what?"

"Maybe a year or two."

"But you're graduating from high school. If ever there was a time to run off and do stupid, crazy, young people stuff it would be now!"

"What like backpacking across Europe?"

"Yeah, exactly!"

"Stupid, crazy, young people stuff is overrated."

A slight glint reaches Willow's eyes. It was very hard for her not to show how relived she was at his words. The tiny upward tilt to her lips that she was trying to suppress sent a warm feeling through Oz's chest. "What about hot Swedish girls and the Leaning Tower of Pisa and all those other generic post-graduation things?"

"_Or,"_ Oz says squeezing Willow's hand,_ "_I stay and stake guys with fangs and sit on your bed at three o'clock in the morning on Sunday nights."

Willow wrinkles her nose. "Are you sure about that, Oz?"

Oz blinks and looks slowly down at Willow. She's still wearing the bright green fuzzy sweater she'd been wearing that day, it's covered in blue and pink squares and hangs halfway down her thighs. There seemed to be a few specks of dust stuck in her hair from a vampire Buffy had staked earlier in the day. She was looking up at Oz, all big eyes and awkward smiles, and Oz was even more certain that he would never, ever leave her. Not as long as he could still make her happy.

"Yeah." Was all he said.

"Okay then," Willow says. She was trying to sound nonchalant but her smile still looks triumphant, "I guess going to a college in the area or something might not be…Oz? What's wrong?"

Oz's knew his facial expression couldn't have changed much. He was clearly no match for Willow.

"Colleges typically want people who've finished high school..."

"What does that mean? You're graduating in a month."

"..."

"Oz…" Willows eyebrows raised.

"I've never really cared for the education system much-"

"Oz, what did you do?"

* * *

The psychology professor smiles when he finally reaches Oz's paper. The stack of papers he'd been reading for the past 6 hours had been mostly passable but stale, lacking in true insight and imagination. A sign only that his student were capable of memorizing long passages of text books, nothing further. But Oz, he was one of the bright ones. Whenever he cared to come to class he was always engaging, intelligent, and at the very least, different. He flips the pages until he reaches the end of the packet, eager to read whatever Oz had to write in the essay section-

It appeared to be a duck.

He flips the page; a doodle of what looked like a dingo on fire.

He turns again, feeling his faith in humanity very rapidly dwindling...

A red-haired Eskimo girl.

He sighs, pressing his finger against the bridge of his nose.

Good God, he hated teenagers.


End file.
